Web Animation / Project Morningstar

Following

Morningstar is an animation and Worldbuilding project started by members of the creative team behind The Exodite, which at present encompasses an animated series, comic book, several short stories and extensive background material serving to establish a new "grimdark" universe inspired by the Warhammer 40,000 setting, while also drawing on other Sci-Fi works including the Alien franchise, BioShock and Blade Runner.

In the distant future, many great civilisations have crumbled to dust, and most human-settled worlds presently fall under the dominion of the Hegemony of a Thousand Empires. In this plutocratic confederacy of worlds, monolithic interstellar MacroCorps wield a commanding influence and enjoy near-limitless freedom to pursue their shared goal: the pursuit of ever-greater profits, regardless of consequences, an objective all but worshipped by the Hegemon. Under the philosophy of "Stellarization", its fleets expand ever outwards to plunder new worlds for all they can give, while the powerful military forces of the Directorate stand ready to exterminate obstructive Exogen populations and bring unenlightened human factions into compliance. Meanwhile, untold billions toil relentlessly for their corporate masters in teeming urban sprawls, hazardous mines, aboard immense starships, or on the battlefield, spurred on by promises that if they too commit to the pursuit of unrestrained Avarice, they may one day reap its rewards.

Yet from the galactic "East" emerge the fleets of the Shigue Diaspora, alien refugees who warn of some great cataclysm that drove them from their homes and may follow in their wake. All they receive in reply is overwhelming force — yet their numbers and advanced technology mean that, for the first time in many fiscal centuries, a significant threat is posed to Hegemon rule. And so begin the Exogen Wars. Or, as the eager Magnates prefer to describe them, The Hunts.

The animation Morningstar: The Hunt can be accessed on YouTube, while the Morningstar Index, short stories and other material can be accessed through the Morningstar website.

General Tropes:

• Abhorrent Admirer: In All Notables, Osino gives Dwarr-Ethio a flirtatious wink after he notices her unnaturally high body temperature. Even if the latter wasn't desperately grieving a Lost Lenore, Osino is a Hexan occultist. That is, a Bio Punk "witch", with pure black eyes, a creepily long neck extended with glowing orbs and an elongated cranium, who can turn her enemies into cancerous puddles of black goo with a touch. Funnily enough, Ethio and the rest of the Skiptracer crew regard her, not entirely inaccurately, as some sort of Humanoid Abomination.
• Absolute Xenophobe: One of the most insidious aspects of the Hegemon is its definition of "New Mankind" as a perfect, unaltered species defined by its unending greed. Any alien species, near-human race or post-human enclave that fails to properly "understand" Avarice is considered non-sapient, and thus a commodity to be exploited if useful and exterminated if not.
• Airborne Aircraft Carrier: The Sky Carriers used by the Directorate's air forces are a hybrid of this and The Battlestar, being small (ish) spaceships that can operate equally in vacuum and atmosphere, where they are used to disgorge a wide variety of aircraft.
• Alien Blood: Shigue bodily fluids are are a vivid blue/purple colour — with Hegemon scientists hesitating to call it "blood" as the Exogen don't have anything resembling a human circulatory system.
• All There in the Manual: Most of the information available on the setting is provided by the Morningstar Index, a Universe Bible separate from the animation, stories and comics. Humorously enough, the Manual is also the name of the Hegemon's quasi-holy book, written by Dumno-Ualos and his successors.
• Altar Diplomacy: Exaggerated with the Clans of the ExeCor, a powerful set of oligarchic dynasties whose access to millennia-old archives of data and irreplaceable Lost Technology is protected by elaborate DNA security systems. This means that inter-Clan matches hold immense financial and political significance, and the production of offspring is undertaken through "heritage contracts", determining which genetic permissions the resulting child or children will obtain.
• Always a Bigger Fish: Issue 4 of Joint Venture depicts a squad of Kotar, who up to this point in the comic have been portrayed as nightmarish killing machines capable of tearing through human soldiers and walkers like it's nothing, being absolutely owned by what is presumably a Catrethi Remnant Zenoba, who slaughters the lot of them without even taking a single hit.
• And I Must Scream: Fabricated Cognition Programs, or FCPs, are semi-sentient computing machines that skirt the Hegemon's Ban on A.I. by providing the user with several different options and allowing a human to have the final say on its actions — leaving a self-aware machine which is completely blocked from any autonomy by its programming.
• Apocalypse Cult: Played with, regarding the various covert societies and organisations that follow the doctrine of Carnicism espoused by the prophetic "shaman" Jeben Sarkahn. They share a belief that human civilisation should be torn apart and man should return to "the caves" in order to finally be safe from Eldritch Abominations prowling the cosmos, which are attracted to mankind's technological progress and lust for knowledge. The cults view nothing as too despicable in pursuit of this goal, and the worst part is that even the Audit doesn't know what they're planning.
• Ban on A.I.: Downplayed — the creation of artificial intelligence is strictly prohibited, but extremely powerful ancient intelligences known as Arkillects are highly coveted and frequently utilised by the Hegemony's most powerful when properly constrained by the Three Codes.
• Berserk Button: The Barakan are usually all-but-brainwashed into performing the mission before them with mechanical ruthlessness and efficiency, but upon encountering the Catraethi Cohorti, one of the the mysterious Super Soldiers they were initially created to counter, anywhere nearby, they will abandon any objective in favour of killing the Cohorti by any means possible, leading to Barakan being barred from operations where Catraethi Remnant activity is suspected.
• BFG: Standard-issue for the Barakan Elite, the Mauler 600C is a twin-barred monstrosity originally intended as a vehicle-mounted weapon, fitted with an extremely accurate computerised targeting system. It typically fires explosive-tipped armor-piercing .70 calibre depleted uranium rounds, irreversibly contaminating any battlefield it is used on.
• Black Speech:
  • Uttar, the extremely harsh and guttural language of the Barakan. It's more accurately a sort of "combat cant", distilling instructions into their bare meaning: "Target all potential threats!" translates as "KIL'OL!".
  • A more overtly supernatural example is Urada-Lang, simply reading which causes individuals to descend into "fits of violent psychopathy".
• Blade Below the Shoulder: The gauntlets of the Barakan Elite are fitted with the so-called "Syoto Dagger", a deadly Quarkalloy wrist-mounted blade equipped with an "in-out" injection function — it can blast high-pressure gas into enemies to cause poisoning or inflict particularly gory wounds, and, as shown in the third issue of "Joint Venture", can be used to expel poison gas into a confined space. All Notables also shows that the gas function can also fire the entire blade in a pinch, which allows the second Kotar to nearly pull off a Mutual Kill on Dwarr-Ethio.
• Blue Is Heroic: Played with. The signifying colour of the Unionists, those fighting against the Hegemon — or more often, a label applied to those the Hegemon wants rid of — is blue. However, exactly how "heroic" the Unionists are can vary considerably, with many massacring the upper classes after taking control, and others collaborating with the sinister Catrethi Remnant, though how aware they are of this partnership is anyone's guess.
• Bounty Hunters: Known as Skiptracers, they are highly skilled, independent trackers and assassins typically used to pursue pirates or other undesirables the Hegemony wants rid of.
• Bread and Circuses:
  • For the Consumer class, the Hegemony is a Crapsaccharine World where misery can temporarily be suspended by legal stimulants, exciting entertainment broadcasts, and a variety of leisure activities — all for a price, of course.
  • A more literal example would be RevShare Day, the only guaranteed holiday for the Hegemony's billions of Consumers every year. Employees can enjoy a meal provided by their employer on the night before, then watch The Games, where corporations will show off their new products in a variety of contests and challenges.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": Implied Trope. The planet of Lhunarca is the origin of "diminutive felids" called clowder which are popular pets in the Hegemon. Given that Lhunarca is implied to be Earth's moon Luna, these creatures are quite probably domestic cats, or something close to them.
• Capitalism Is Bad: Very pointedly the Central Theme of the setting. The Hegemony is a nightmarish hyper-capitalist dystopia where the powers that be regard everything as a commodity to be exploited for profit.
• Chicken Walker: Known as "Bipedal Gyro-Tanks", these are some of the Directorate Army's preferred frontline combat vehicles, and can be used as troop transports. One is seen in the third issue of "Joint Venture", where it is destroyed by a Barakan Kotar who uses their rocket boots to leap on top of it and gas the crew.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: A variant. A ship can exist in the Outside effectively because it exists there, as interacted with and perceived by its crew, which is one of the major reasons why they have to remain conscious during a Descent. This doesn't work forever, though, and prolonged exposure, especially if the ship's navigator becomes lost, will lead to a breakdown of reality.
• Cosmic Horror Story: A thorough reading of the Index, especially the final chapter, "On Gods", makes it plain that the Morningstar universe is an old, dangerous and strange place. Inexplicable cataclysms, utterly forbidden knowledge, deranged cults and horrifying entities of unknowable power can all be found across Known Space and threaten disaster, not at all helped by the MacroCorps' tendency to screw with them in the hopes of turning some Profit. Indeed, human civilisation was almost completely destroyed at its peak by the unknowable Sah'nikt — leaving the Survivors with such extreme trauma that it led to their collective, willing mind-wiping and ultimately the Hegemon's xenophobia and Ban on A.I. — and it feels as though it's only a matter of time before something similar emerges to wreak havoc.
• Corrupt Church:
  • All organised religion in the Hegemon is forced to become this, at least to some degree. Religious observance isn't banned per se, but all religions must become subscription services, selling faith, belief and observance as a product — the more extensive, the higher the price.
  • Trappist, one of the core systems of the Hegemon, is highly religious and serves as an ideological enclave from the confederation's anarcho-capitalism. However, the ruling Pontiffs are members of the Hegemon's Summit Council and the system produces a suspiciously disproportionate amount of "volunteer" Indentured.
  • Five Hands Holistic Panceuticals is a religious MacroCorp, the Hegemon's dominant provider of medicine and healthcare services, descended from an order of matriarchal healers. It is also a highly belligerent and aggressive force that forces its beliefs and products on medics and governments alike, utilises a Division of Barakan infamous for their sheer brutality, makes use of all kinds of inventive biological and chemical weapons, covertly conducts highly unethical research away from prying eyes, and took advantage of a Civil War to destroy their biggest competitor with a mutagenic virus.
• Corrupted Character Copy:
  • The Barakan Elite are this in relation to the Adeptus Astartes of Warhammer 40,000. Both are forces of almost unstoppable Super Soldiers, utterly lethal and loyal to their masters, clad in Powered Armour that transforms already massive bodies into walking tanks, and armed with weapons ordinary humans could not hope to wield. But there the similarity ends. An Astartes is a human enhanced beyond all biological limits, and a Barakan is a thing that Was Once a Man. While the Astartes are commonly portrayed as heroes and regarded with awe by the citizens of the Imperium as the "Emperor's Angels of Death", the Barakan are "living nightmares": drug-fuelled berserkers that will slaughter anything in their path, driven half-mad by bloodlust and overstimulation, kept only barely under control by tranquillisers and cogit-hoods, and so unstable they are stored in suspended animation when not in deployment. Moreover, the Bio-Augmentation process the Barakan undergo introduces deliberate flaws: without the right chemical supplements, they will descend completely into an animalistic rage before their enhanced bodies destroy themselves, preventing them from ever rebelling against their corporate masters — a deconstruction of the invincible, heroic post-human warriors common in Science Fiction.
  • This is particularly apparent in the first Joint Venture comic, where a Barakan is referred to as "it" and regarded with something approaching disgust by its human handlers.
• Crapsack World: The Hegemon is a rapacious plutocracy with an expansionistic, xenocidal policy of Manifest Destiny. Anything and anyone is ruthlessly exploited in any way possible to extract profit, while any form of dissent is rapidly put down with overwhelming force. Billions are trapped by debt, working endlessly to the benefit of their corporate masters with only platitudes and token benefits to distract them from their toil, and billions more are Indentured slaves, treated like livestock and brainwashed into mindless obedience for the remainder of their short, miserable lives.
• Death World:
  • In an unusual example, the Hegemony's capital world Protea is one, due to a terraforming effort Gone Horribly Wrong. While the air is technically breathable, it's polluted smog, with acid rain and radioactive dust storms common occurrences, and the incredibly long 'days' leaving the population to roast in the toxic miasma. However, the planet's rulers deign to improve things in any way, to serve as a reminder of the resilience of New Mankind and the cost of industrial and economic progress. The local population simply relies on high-grade medications and radiation treatments to keep going, and bear the burden with pride.
  • Played for Black Comedy with Sebastos V — a planet with a surface made of asbestos, which its name is an anagram of — it made the fortune of the Republika MacroCorp, which has found no end of uses for this versatile material: well-known health risks aren't an issue if the victims are of low credit.
• Diesel Punk: The general aesthetic of the Hegemony, or at least that of their military vehicles, weapons and equipment — advanced, but clunky and utilitarian-looking, with lots of warning labels and exposed rivets. Similarly, the computer system seen in the opening for Part 1 of The Hunt has a retro 1980s/1990s feel. The developers refer to this as "Cassette Brutalism".
• The Dog Bites Back: The trials to become an Ar'tash — the special pilot caste dedicated to crewing Shigue combat frames — often involve candidates being hunted by the Coegi scavengers who dwell upon the Migration fleet. As a result, the Ar'tash will kill Coegi on sight, in contrast to normal Shigue, who view them as a simple fact of life.
• The Dreaded: The Barakan Elite. Gene-enhanced, power-armoured berserkers that will utterly crush and destroy anything in their path. And they have rarely if ever been known to lose. Entire armies have been known to simultaneously commit suicide on learning of their deployment.
• Earth-That-Was: Earth, known by New Mankind as "Ur" or "Urth" is a long-forgotten myth, with no less than fourteen planets claiming to be the birthplace of humanity. Dumno-Ulaos argues in the Manual that Earth was totally stripped of its resources through the Avarice of mankind, and given that the most probable location of Earth is a barren rock which the planet of Lhunarca in the Protean system, heavily implied to be Earth's Moon, orbits, he might have been onto something… Though several scattered references hint at something considerably more sinister having befallen mankind's homeworld.
• Eldritch Abominations: The Sah'nikt, the first alien race that Old Mankind had the misfortune of encountering. So horrifying were they that almost all records of them were destroyed, and what little remains suggests they were something beyond comprehension, using words as weapons and perhaps even being a form of sentient data that twisted humans and sentient machines alike into horrific abominations, before they disappeared without a trace.
• Establishing Series Moment: The "Tone Document" is designed to invoke this by demonstrating how the average Consumer-class Hegemon citizen lives a life consisting of meaningless toil, meagre "rewards" and ceaseless corporate doublespeak.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Played with. The commanders of the Shigue, who are always the biggest males, will place themselves in the thick of the fighting and commonly sacrifice themselves to let their troops escape. The Hegemon sees this only as proof that the Shigue are dumb animals.
• Evil Versus Evil: The first serious threat to the Hegemon was posed by the Catraethi Regenium, a fanatically religious empire who worship a living "Mother-God". They may have opposed the Hegemon, but they also practiced slavery, saw any form of modified humans as "blasphemies" and were not above indiscriminately nuking civilian populations.
• Explosive Leash: The Tetsudyne Powered Armor worn by Barakan requires a backpack-mounted Velanite generator for power, and a Taskmaster can trigger those attached to its Kotar to blow with the force of a small nuclear explosion. As well as destroying any potential renegades, it can hopefully ensure a Barakan's killer dies with it, while preventing enemies from studying its equipment or biology.
• Expy: Given the nature of the setting, a significant number of elements have been adapted from Warhammer 40,000:
  • The Hegemon itself is an analogue of the Imperium of Man, being an expansionistic and virulently xenophobic confederation of human colonies united by a common ideology (in this case, profit), where the ruling classes live in sumptuous luxury supported by the labour of teeming billions who live in constant misery.
    • However, the Catraethi Regenium can be considered a much more direct equivalent to the Imperium, given that it's a technologically stagnant, warlike and hyper-religious empire that worshipped a God Empress.
  • The Barakan Elite are the equivalent of the Adeptus Astartes, heavily biologically and cybernetically enhanced Super Soldiers who serve as the most deadly enforcers of the Hegemony, wielding oversized assault rifles firing explosive rounds and clad in Powered Armor.
  • The Yinntosh are one of the Adeptus Mechanicus, being the primary technological power base of the Hegemony, whose existence they predate, while having a nasty habit of getting themselves killed messing around with Lost Technology.
  • The Audit are the equivalent to the Inquisition, being the Hegemony's universally feared, all-powerful and unaccountable Secret Police/State Sec who are also responsible for dealing with alien species and other threats, while individual Auditors are often heavily augmented, enigmatic figures that amass a retinue of specialists.
  • Members of the MassTrader Union are similar in role to Rogue Traders, being starship captains operating outside the rule of the Hegemony who often end up making First Contact with alien races and exploring as they seek out opportunities for profit.
• Fantastic Livestock:
  • The most popular meat in the Hegemon is "Checken" — which originates from flightless birds that on average weigh 180kg, are three meters in length, and can lay 7-12 eggs at a time, indicating that they are heavily genetically engineered chickens.
  • This is also the fate of any Exogen species unlucky enough to be edible or otherwise economically useful — instead of being liquidated, they will be farmed, regardless of sentience.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
  • Suns Confederated bears some similarities to the United States, or at least to "'Murica", consisting of twelve rebellious colonies that formed a powerful, warlike political entity. Confederation culture reveres a self-reliant pioneer spirit, their revolutionary legacy, and, of course, firearms.
  • Downplayed, as we only see one person and not the civilisation he comes from, but Kusatokani from All Notables is very obviously a samurai-equivalent, being an armored Master Swordsman who wields a curved blade crafted by master artisans, must accept a formal challenge, repeatedly quotes proverbs of wisdom, and composes a poem as he prepares to strike.
• The Federation: The Hegemony makes pretence of being one, but this is only true to the same extent that the People's Republic of Tyranny is "a democracy". Representatives of its constituting interstellar governments and nation-states do make up part of its governing body, the Summit Council, but they share this role with representatives of the MacroCorps, who are the ones really calling the shots — and given that the entire Hegemony effectively worships greed, profit and market forces, it's not hard to see why.
• Gatling Good: The "heavy automat-assault scattergun", known as the Strikebreaker, is a five-barrelled rotary shotgun which has reached such iconic status In-Universe that Tributaries equipped with the weapon are purposely deployed for the purpose of filming propaganda material.
• Godzilla Threshold: The Barakan Elite are only ever unleashed by the Hegemon and its MacroCorps in the direst or most urgent circumstances, given that anything and anyone in the vicinity of the combat zone will almost inevitably become Collateral Damage and/or be irreversibly contaminated. They are explicitly likened to walking atomic bombs.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: If a starship spends too long in the Outside, the laws of physics begin to break down and eventually "the human brain is opened to the conceptual negativity of nothingness". This is implied to permanently break the human mind, given that there are no records whatsoever of exposure to the Outside past this point.
• Grandfather Clause:
  • As one might expect, labour unions of any sort are banned in the anarcho-capitalist Hegemon, with the exception of the MassTrader Union of starship captains and crew — given that they have existed as the primary authority on Faster-Than-Light Travel for over eight thousand years, attempting to break it up would have been practically suicidal for the Hegemon.
  • Similarly, clones (also known as "Proxies"), which can range from mindless puppets to fully sentient copies, are heavily regulated by the Hegemon. However, the Myroit Empire, the oldest extant human civilisation, was permitted to join without disbanding their elite Alakathiri military force, comprised of clones of the Empire's greatest heroes that aren't legally considered proxies. It certainly helped that the Directorate did not want to fight them.
• Gravity Master: The Shigue Disapora depend massively on gravity-manipulation technology for construction, energy generation, weaponry and propulsion systems.
• Green Rocks: Velanite is an exotic element found within the Vela Nebula, which when properly contained and cryogenically cooled, can provide for an almost infinite source of energy, and is also a key element in enabling descents into the Outside. Needless to say, Velanite mining and refining is exceptionally big business, with sky-high salaries attempting to compensate for the equally high risk of massive radiation exposure. Production is controlled by the Organisation of Velanite Exporting Systems, which are wealthy and powerful enough to have a division of Barakan on permanent standby.
• Heinous Hyena: The Coegi, one of the many species making up the Shigue Diaspora, are a vaguely canid scavenger species bearing some superficial resemblance to hyenas, and play a key role in the Darwinian herd-based society of the Shigue by devouring weak Shigue with no resistance from their peers. They also act as raiders and Space Pirates, using cloaked spacecraft to pick off small parties of human colonists with little ability to protect themselves from their ravenous hunger.
• Hellhole Prison: A popular form of incarceration in the Hegemon is known as a "Stakk" — a structure which extends kilometres below the earth and is entirely "self-regulated". The upper levels, to which all food and water is delivered, are relatively "peaceful", typically controlled by powerful gangs, where prisoners work off their sentences, while the lower levels are completely lawless, horrifying nightmares where the only rule is Might Makes Right.
• Human Weapon: The Barakan Elite were once human, but have been brainwashed and mind-broken into what are effectively ambulatory Weapons of Mass Destruction — a Kotar has little purpose or awareness other than as an implement of destruction.
  Overseer of the Pale Tempest: Do not call us warriors - we are not some honorable breed. We do not fight for ideals, or glory, or a brighter tomorrow. We kill because it is the only thing left for us, because we are good at it and, most importantly, because we enjoy it.
• Hyperspace Is a Scary Place: To achieve Faster-Than-Light Travel, Hegemon starships must "descend" into The Outside — a place where humans are not supposed to be. The overwhelming presence of nothing often results in Sanity Slippage, anyone who falls asleep has their brain scrambled, and ghost signals and scratching noises on the hulls of ships are frequently reported.
• Impersonation Gambit: Jol M'kar, the protagonist of the "Manifest" short story, disguises himself as a porter named "Ghona Brandt" (who he won a favour from in a game of cards) in order to stow away on a MassTrader vessel.
• Insert Grenade Here: Played with, in the third issue of "Joint Venture", a Barakan Kotar leaps on top of a Unionist-controlled BGT, and uses poison gas expelled from its Syoto Dagger to kill the crew instead of a grenade, though the effect is functionally the same.
• It Is Dehumanising:
  • The Barakan Kotar depicted in the first "Joint Venture" comic is pointedly referred to as it to make clear that the Kotar is a monster that cannot be considered human any longer.
  • Exogen species are assigned alphanumeric designations rather than names to convey a sense of ownership and control, such as "20-22Ω" for the Shigue species.
• Just Like Robin Hood: Talan Hod, once the Archonist Magnate of Wanvath Underwriting, one of the Hegemon's most powerful macro-corporations, went utterly stir-crazy from his limitless wealth and reinvented himself as a pirate prince, plundering corporate assets and giving them away to the impoverished on a whim, along with his men, the Paupers. Known as the Mhendax, they are also said to be brutal murderers, torturers and slavers — though exactly how true this is remains unclear.
• Loser Protagonist: The first-person P.O.V. character in the "Tone Document" is a somewhat pathetic individual who completely buys in to the Hegemon's propaganda and spends their days slaving away in what is essentially an interstellar Amazon warehouse. This is perhaps to reflect what life is actually like for most "ordinary" people in the Hegemon, fortunate only in that they are not subhuman indentured slaves.
• The Lost Lenore: We're never told her name, but Dwarr-Ethio from All Notables has been so utterly broken by the lost of his lover that his sole objective is to save up enough cap for a grade S sensation pod and shut himself away forever with his remaining memories of her.
• Low Culture, High Tech: The Catraethi Regenium were a lost colony of Aramax, and had access to numerous forms of Lost Technology beyond anything the Hegemon was capable of producing, from true immortality to matretic weapons to organic suits of Powered Armor. However, the Regentium was a technologically stagnant theocracy that was unable to engage in any kind of innovation of its own accord — and this resulted in, for instance, legions of slaves being used to construct grand temples and monuments instead of more practical construction methods.
• Made of Indestructium: Quarkalloy or "quarkal" is an exotic and hideously expensive metallic substance that's practically immune to degradation or damage except from other quarkal objects, and can produce the most deadly bladed weapons in the Hegemon.
• Magnetic Weapons: Played with. The Shigue species tends to use "Gravlock" weapons, which function much like railguns except they use gravitational forces rather than magnets to propel metal pellets to incredibly high velocities.
• Memory Gambit: Mentanics, specialised neurological "data surgeons", can induce these — after operating on a subject, information and memories can be programmed to return to them upon encountering certain memetic triggers, usually as a form of operational security. For instance, the Skiptracer team in All Notables are unaware that their objective is to capture a Barakan alive until they set eyes on their target.
• The Men in Black: High Oversight is a specialised division of the Audit dedicated to hunting down and containing the various "discoveries, creatures, individuals and concepts" originating from Old Humanity that could potentially pose a risk to the Hegemony. This is played with, however, in that the organisation actively showcases the existence of itself and its captives in propaganda campaigns, making it unclear what is real and what is fiction.
• Mini-Mecha:
  • The Armoured Mobility Unit ("AMU"), deployed by the Directorate. Designed in part so that human Tributaries could compete with the Barakan, they are effectively upscaled suits of pocketsteel controlled via Brain–Computer Interface by the 'rider' inside a cramped "cockpit". They boast a modular design allowing individual riders to customise weapons and other equipment to personal or mission preferences, and some are even capable of flight.
  • The Shigue have their own variant known as a "combat frame" — rarely deployed, but far more powerful than the Hegemon's AMUs, being equipped with hard-light and gravitic defences/weapons, and capable of operating in any environment, including the vacuum of space.
• Man in the Machine: Not technically a "man", but Shigue combat frames are piloted by a special caste known as the Ar'tash, whose limbs are amputated, permanently bonding them to their war machine.
• Monster Organ Trafficking:
  • Any species which does not properly display Avarice is not human. Anything which is not human is a resource which may be exploited in any way to make a profit, and this is inevitably a common result.
  • Shigue encephic horns, for reasons of Bizarre Alien Biology, can be ground up into a powerful intoxicant and alleged "miracle cure" also known as Horn, Maze or Shiver.
  • The Hymeira are coral-like beings from Another Dimension that start to form on ships' hulls during prolonged exposure to the Outside. They are farmed by Five Hands, which extracts their "blood" to produce faster-than-light communication devices and their "brains" as navigational computers. However, a sizeable number of them have Escaped from the Lab...
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: The Shigue species have four arms, and are a far tougher than humans, possessing incredible strength and the durability to shrug off anything less than anti-vehicle weaponry. This also extends to their combat frames.
• Nightmare Fetishist: More or less anything can and will be recorded, edited and sold as entertainment by Corpos — battlefield footage and the extermination of Exogenic races are bad enough, but by far the most horrifying are broadcasts from Oremor. This planet was attacked with a nightmarish mutagenic bioweapon which essentially turned the entire biosphere into something out of The Thing, and much later an enterprising prison magnate decided to film criminals, Indentured and other unfortunates competing in "challenges" on the Death World. Such recordings are, somehow, exceedingly popular, with many even paying to experience them first-hand.
• Noodle Incident: The catastrophe referred to as "Marketfall" midway through the Hegemon's second fiscal century, which is mentioned sparingly throughout the Index. It's left remarkably ambiguous as to what actually happened, but reference is made to a rogue Arkillect, the mutiny of at least two entire Divisions of Barakan, the mysterious Yinntosh Hyperkillers, and fighting taking place on Protea itself, which was cut off from the rest of the Hegemony for a whole decade, causing untold chaos.
• Old-School Dogfight: Most of the Directorate's air force are equipped for this style of warfare, since nano seed clouds block long-range missiles and sensors... And because this has led to improved ratings for combat footage broadcasts.
• Only the Chosen May Pilot: Played with regarding the Ar'tash, the Shigue warrior caste responsible for piloting their "combat frame" mechs — they are seen as making a Heroic Sacrifice to Shigue society given that they can never become anything other than warriors, and that the process for installation within a combat frame involves becoming a quadruple amputee, while fully conscious. After carefully chosen individuals are subjected to this, they are subjected to a variety of deadly trials that leave few survivors. This is also parodied given that Ar'tash are "physiologically suspended in a state of juvenile puberty" when outside of their mechs, being overconfident and quick to anger, given the propensity of anime/manga mecha pilots to be Hot-Blooded teenagers.
• Organic Technology:
  • The Gyvor Autoplate used by the Catraethi Cohorti is less Powered Armor and more a sort of parasitic organism which permanently bonds with Cohorti, linking their biological functions to the extent that the "suits" could grow with the Cohorti, becoming stronger and developing new capabilities.
  • Five Hands Panceuticals are also heavy users of this, equipping their elite Priobadh soldiers with less advanced, but still formidable, Bio-Armor grown out of the "wearers'" own bodies, while also manufacturing brain-matter-based computers and Sealladh weapon scopes which resemble disembodied human eyes.
• Our Founder: Dumno-Ulaos, the scion of a merchant clan, is consider the father of Stellarization and the Hegemony as a whole. He is responsible for overseeing the construction of the Market and proselytizing the glories of unrestrained Avarice through the first editions of the Manual, the Hegemon’s Bible-in-all-but-name.
• People Jars: One of the few means by which true immortality can be achieved by the Hegemon's wealthiest Magnates is through immersion in a Hyperian encasement pod filled with the amber of sentient trees. This permanently immobilises the body but preserves the mind, and the pod is often coupled to a robotic chassis for locomotion. A questionable trade-off, for sure.
• Perspective Flip: The setting performs one in relation to Warhammer 40,000, which it draws heavily from: what if the Imperium of Man was winning? The Imperium, the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable, is officially a Villain Protagonist, but is generally seen and portrayed as one of the most sympathetic factions in the Warhammer setting because almost all of its enemies are even worse and/or threaten to completely wipe out mankind. The Hegemony, even though it boasts a significantly higher average quality-of-life for its citizens, is more straightforwardly "evil" because it is almost completely unopposed and only getting stronger, bringing its numerous atrocities, and the completely innocent human and alien populations that (much like the Imperium) it crushes beneath its bootheel, into focus.
• Planet Spaceship: The Havenholds of the Shigue are enormous vessels hundreds of kilometres long that have sustained the Diaspora species during their flight from a doomed homeworld, complete with artificial habitats that replicate a myriad of environments including entire mountains and forests, with a captive star fragment powering the whole thing. It's implied that the craft effectively become megacities when landing on planets slated for colonisation.
• Powered Armor: Harnesses of Autoplate turn the wearer into a walking tank, such as the 0-7 Tetsudyne model used by the infamous Barakan, which takes a crew of four to mount it to its wielder. A much more basic version of this technology, known as "pocketsteel", is issued to officers and special units in the Directorate, and is impervious to small arms fire.
• Powered by a Black Hole: Played with. Some of the setting's most exotic (and expensive) materials can only be manufactured in advanced facilities known as deepforges, which are "anchored" below the event horizon of a black hole to take advantage of the immense gravitational forces.
• Power Nullifier: In their war against the Catraethi Regenium, the Hegemon was initially at a major disadvantage, due to the Catraethi possessing matretic weapons, Ray Guns so powerful that even handheld variants could down starships. The Directorate turned the tide by deploying nanotech-infused "flak clouds" that could dissipate matretic beams — the technologically stagnant Regenium was unable to respond quickly enough and was crushed.
• Praetorian Guard: The 0-1 Division of Barakan, resplendent in black, white and gold armor, serve as the closed fist of the Hegemon's ruling Summit Council and provide security for the Market itself, VIPs and crucial resource deliveries. Befitting their role, their ranks consist only of Taskmasters and Overseers, given that the "rank-and-file" Kotar probably aren't suited for sensitive guard duties.
• Precursors: The Aramaxian Supremacy, a coalition of human and alien races that banded together in the wake of the Sah'nikt to reclaim the galaxy and destroy the abominations they left behind. They are responsible for creating the most powerful of the Lost Technology discovered by the Hegemon.
• Proud Warrior Race: Played with, and perhaps ultimately Subverted by the Shigue. While they display numerous traits typically associated with this archetype (being far tougher than humans to the extent of shrugging off anything short of anti-vehicle ammunition; operating on a policy of Large and in Charge whereby smaller Shigue obey the orders of larger ones without question; having a culture of self-sacrifice…), Shigue society is ultimately defined by the species’ origin as a herd-based prey animals. They do not revere fighting, seemingly preferring a diplomatic approach. Moreover, any sacrifices are performed with the intention of protecting the herd - for instance, military commanders will always put themselves in harm's way to allow civilians and their subordinates to flee if a battle is lost.
• Punch-Packing Pistol: Exaggerated in the case of matric weapons, a form of quasi-Lost Technology developed by the Aramaxian Supremacy — handheld models are capable of destroying tanks and small starships. This is seen in All Notables where the Old Man's matric pistol quite comfortably annihilates a Drop Ship, though this is noted to require a Charged Attack that drains the weapon's power source.
• Radar Is Useless: Invoked. Nanoid seed clouds are a ubiquitous defence system that, in addition to nullifying Energy Weapons, blocks all kinds of sensors and targeting, ensuring that most combat engagements take place at medium-to-close range.
• The Remnant: In the setting's "present day", remnants of the Catraethi Regentium, including provolved Cohorti forces, have emerged as a major threat to the Hegemony, seemingly waging a shadow war against it and covertly backing Unionist movements in an attempt to secure revenge — though their true goals and degree of organisation remain unknown.
• Renegade Splinter Faction: The Karanova Republic is a collection of worlds in direct opposition to the Hegemon who reject the rule of the Summit Council, but still proclaim to follow the doctrine of Avarice and the hyper-capitalist teachings of Dumno-Ulaos — they'd just prefer to do it on their own, libertarian-esque, terms.
• Retraux: The black-and-white illustrations in the Morningstar Index are deliberately meant to invoke 1990s RPG sourcebooks.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilised: Issue 2 of Joint Venture depicts the workers of the Tosch Worldring overthrowing their corporate masters, massacring the entire upper class in the process and killing a hundred thousand by nuking Tosch's newly built inner ring.
• Riches to Rags: Downplayed. Dwarr-Ethio, a.k.a. the "Old Man" from All Notables is still an elite-tier Skiptracer with access to the very best equipment and weapons, but it's stated he once controlled "the wealth of an entire sector" and had access to premium life-extending treatments making him over 300 years old. As such, he is regarded with something approaching awe by some of his teammates.
• Scenery Gorn: The first issue of the Joint Venture comic opens with a panel showing the wasteland of Catraeth, the capital of a theocratic empire that was foolish enough to stand up to the Hegemon and was nuked into oblivion by the Barakan in their first deployment, some of whom then claimed it as their "homeworld".
  A dark wind blows across the face of a murdered world. The sky is a funerary shroud covering a land twisted with craters and pock-marked with oceans of melted soil.
• Signed Up for the Dental:
  • The Hegemon's Consumer class will often sign on as Tributaries to the Directorate's military forces due to the wide range of benefits it can offer — quicker ascension to a Person credit rating, improved access to education and healthcare, and better odds in the lottery for obtaining a ticket on a colony ship. Of course, in order to access said benefits you need to survive, and the Directorate and its sponsors are more than happy to charge their recruits for a myriad of goods and services in an attempt to ensure their debts only continue to grow.
  • Similarly, exceptionally generous pay increases and other incentives are offered to the "mole men" who handle highly radioactive Velanite, and to Tributaries willing to work in close proximity to the Barakan, who are well known for what can euphemistically be termed "friendly fire incidents".
• Shout-Out:
  • The quote introducing the Index chapter on the Directorate is a "Drinking song from Holgate III" that consists of the chorus from "The Fine Print", concerning a different spacefaring capitalist dystopia.
  • An abandoned Ring World Planet becomes host to a popular blistering-fast, extremely dangerous motorsport known as Ringracing.
  • The Directorate recruitment film that plays on the side of a warship in Morningstar: The Hunt Part Two may as well be encouraging viewers to join the Mobile Infantry.
  • Also in Part Two, the shot of the Barakan emerging from the smoke after performing a Dynamic Entry into an enemy vehicle is very reminiscent of a similar scene in Astartes.
  • One of the footer quotes in the Index (fittingly, on one of the pages concerning the Barakan) is "before man, war waited", a reference to Judge Holden's infamous "War is God" monologue.
  • The Bio-Armor used by the Catraethi Cohorti is called "Gyvor" Autoplate. Sound familiar?
  • The section of the Index discussing Hyperian sap immortality is subtitled "In Amber Clad".
  • To keep a large population of Indentured complacent across the twelve colonies which would eventually become Suns Confederated, the Stratos Industrial MacroCorp founded a Scam Religion known as the Triad Reformation, which preached extreme self-reliance, including through one day a year where all laws are suspended. Naturally, the Reformists eventually decided this system should also apply to their corporate overlords.
• State Sec: The Audit, a widely feared enforcement agency that, while permitting for local variation, ensures that all those living within the Hegemony obey the most crucial tenets of its belief system and laws: for this reason, it is in a rare position of authority over the MacroCorps. They are responsible for subjecting any rising Corpos or Magnates to scrutiny, judging whether near-human populations are capable of being considered part of New Mankind and dealing with Exogenic and other external threats.
• Stop, or I Shoot Myself!: The Arscola Communality are a collective of worlds who value the pursuit of art above all else, utilising legions of ergoids to replace manual labour and fulfil their every whim — which goes against everything the Hegemony believes in. Nonetheless, they have managed to survive by threatening to blast their coveted artworks into oblivion with nuclear weapons if the Hegemony moves against them, which is more than enough of a deterrent for the Hegemon's wealthiest, many of whom hold Arscola works in great regard.
• Supreme Chef: Exaggerated in the case of Ramag Sordoyn, a renowned chef and Egomaniac Hunter who has constructed an entire city devoted to the culinary arts, where one can sample fabulous and exotic dishes from known and unknown worlds across the galaxy. Of course, this includes many Exogen species, and it's reasonable to assume that a fair number of them may be sentient.
• These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: The Cosmic Horror-themed final chapter of the Index, "On God(s)", strongly implies that Old Humanity, who "sought the architect beyond the veil" in a bid to discover the mysteries of life and the universe, are responsible for attracting, summoning or awakening the Sah'nikt.
• Time Abyss: Stratos Industrial, the starship-building giant and most venerable of the MacroCorps, has existed in some form for over eight thousand years, only one of those thousands under the Hegemon. The MassTrader Union is even older.
• Unreliable Narrator: Significant sections of the Morningstar Index are presented from a pro-Hegemon point of view, making some events and facts rather dubious.
• Vicious Cycle:
  • Heavily implied to be how the colonisation of new worlds in the Hegemon works. Colonists, who have saved, served in the Directorate, won lotteries, cheated or lied in order to obtain a coveted ticket on a transport to the Frontier, do all the hard work of settling a new planet, fending off hostile conditions, murderous wildlife, and marauding Space Pirates. Then, along comes a MacroCorp that will offer to "lease" the world from a position of overwhelming strength. A few of the higher-ranking or better-connected colonists might get a payout or a cushy job, but the rest are suddenly beholden to a new corporate power, and soon enough their descendents will begin to dream of setting off into the stars...
  • Exogen ß_4k.3, known as "The Harvesters", allegedly once raided human worlds, but were crushed, forcibly devolved, and exiled to a single planet. The Hegemony permits them to periodically evolve into a spacefaring civilisation and use a Gatesphere generator dressed up as an ancient portal to achieve Faster-Than-Light Travel, after which the Directorate attacks and sends them back to the Stone Age, with the whole thing recorded as hilarious entertainment.
• Void Between the Worlds: Effectively what the Outside appears to be, being a non-Euclidean plane of nothing that forms an "envelope" around normal matter, utilised by the Hegemony for Faster-Than-Light Travel.
• Walking Wasteland: The Barakan Elite are highly resistant to radiation, and as such their suits of Powered Armor used to be powered by compact fission generators, with disastrous effects for accompanying Tributaries (their targets certainly didn't live long enough to worry about radiation poisoning), before Velanite fuels were introduced. This is in addition to the fact that their Mauler 600 autocannons fire toxic ammunition which contaminates any battlefield it is used on.
• War for Fun and Profit:
  • Just like everything else in the Hegemon, conflict is commercialised to the hilt: MacroCorps are essentially encouraged to use force to settle disputes, given that Armasyn and its smaller competitors will inevitably profit off the sale of weapons. As such, soldiers are offered corporate sponsorships, combat footage is edited and distributed as entertainment media, and battleships are equipped with luxury observation decks allowing their financiers to watch the carnage unfold or even direct the ship's guns against defenceless alien populations.
  • The Exogen Wars against the Shigure are essentially treated as The Grand Hunt by observing Magnates, complete with some Hegemon soldiers competing to perform elaborate kills on their alien foes.
• We Will Have Euthanasia in the Future: Many people cannot cope with the shame and misery of becoming a Dent, and instead take the provided option to "opt-out". Of course, they are charged an additional fee for this, which is passed on to the debtor's family.

Tropes appearing in Morningstar: The Hunt:

• Asbestos-Free Cereal: Played for Drama. The Directorate recruitment ad seen in Part Two of Morningstar: The Hunt, proudly declares that new recruits can expect "three full meals". Ain't that encouraging?
• Awesome Personnel Carrier: The Pale Tempest Barakan travel in clunky but menacing-looking half-track APCs with huge, spiked wheels and elevating firing platforms for the troops inside.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: One particularly unfortunate Shigue is stabbed by a Barakan with its gauntlet blade — which then injects the victim with compressed gas, causing the wound to burst outwards. This is based on a real device, a knife designed to protect divers from sharks.
• Dynamic Entry: The Pale Tempest Barakan attack a Shigue self-propelled anti-ship emplacement cannon by driving their APC off a ramp and into the machine.
• Hero Antagonist: While the Shigue are framed as the antagonists, the opening text makes clear that they're simply trying to defend a refugee fleet against a bunch of bloodthirsty kleptocrats trying to wipe them all out for sport.
• It Has Been an Honour: The Shigue Longhorn in charge of the artillery walker makes a statement to this effect after it is boarded.
  Longhorn: We are of service... And shall forever be of service.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Barakan 02 is so consumed by bloodlust blasting away at the Shigue that it fails to duck back inside the APC in time, leading to its death when the vehicle is used to perform a Dynamic Entry.
• Rocket Boots: The Barakan are equipped with these, which allow them to make very impressive leaps given their immense bulk.
• Spider Tank: The Shigue self-propelled anti-starship artillery are very, very large Spider Tanks, topped with two huge surface-to-orbit cannons.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: In Part One, the Barakan's weapon continues to glow red-hot after being fired as there's no air to cool it down in a vacuum.
• War Was Beginning: Part One begins with a few brief passages introducing the Exogen Wars between the Hegemony and Shigue Diaspora.
• You Are Number Six: The Barakan are seen referring to themselves by number rather than name.